Soliloquy: Ravings of a Mad Girl
by Planet Enchilada
Summary: Finnick Odair's eyes were green or maybe blue and Finnick Odair tied knots and Finnick Odair was brave and Finnick Odair is dead. And Annie is alive.


**A/N** This is my first _Hunger Games_ story to be published and second overall. It is exactly as the title says, Annie's thoughts, a little mixed-up, a little broken up, but coherent, at least, I hope. I hope you enjoy it AND please do leave a review. The reviews, those are addicting. I love all the reviews, any kind.

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><p>Finnick Odair's eyes were green.<p>

Or maybe blue.

How can you look out at the sea and say, "That color is blue" or "That color is green?" Can you even try to name the color of the sea?

Sometimes when it's cold outside the sea is gray. It's slate gray and it runs into the sky. It makes waves up the sides of the sky.

Like the arena.

Waves that go up to the top, blocking out the sun and making it dark and it looks like the wave is coming at you. Like it's coming at you and it's going to drown you because it's going to crash on your head and it's going to hurt you and you can't swim away.

I never learned how to swim.

We never do. Does one teach a shark to hunt, a dolphin to jump, a gull to fly? It is life. It will save the life it is.

I used to swim away but now I can't and I have to cover my ears because the water will get in and it will get my brain wet and it will rinse it out of everything that's important because that's what the Capitol does. And my brain will be washed and Finnick will be gone.

Sometimes when it's hot outside the sea is clear. It isn't blue, like people will come up to you and tell you. "The sea is blue," they will say. "The sky is blue. You cannot eat that because we do not and the sea is blue." But when it's hot outside you cannot see any blue. You see the sand and the fish and the fish swim around your legs and the tide pulls the sand away from your feet so that they sink down in the sand like the sand is petting your feet like you might pet a whale that has gotten stuck in a lagoon as it dies. But my feet aren't dying and I'm not dying and if I was I would know it because it's happened before.

Finnick Odair tied knots.

He had rope and it was long and it was worn and it was fraying and I could sew it up with black thread but he didn't like that because it was real and if I did that it wouldn't be real anymore and if it wasn't real then it wasn't worthwhile because everything else wasn't real.

Sometimes I'm like that. Sometimes I think somebody is talking to me but they aren't real. Sometimes it's the boy without a head. Sometimes it's him. But they aren't real and nobody ever tells me that they aren't real because sometimes I just forget. It's nice to forget sometimes because it's been a long time since I saw them but I'll have plenty of time for that when the wave does come and now I have to make sure other people don't get washed away.

You can point at Finnick's knots and say, "Knots" and you would be right. Finnick tied knots. But you can point at Finnick's knots and say, "Net" and you would be right, too, because the knots are a net, too. You can point at Finnick's knots and say, "Bird" and you would be right because if Finnick tied seven knots and wrapped the first two around each other and wove the fifth under it looked like a bird, like a seagull sitting on a pier after somebody threw bread at him but a child ate it instead.

Finnick Odair was brave.

Finnick was braver than anybody. Finnick was braver than me. Finnick promised me he'd keep me safe and he did because I'm safe now and we're all safe now. Bad things happened to Finnick but they made him braver. He never ever talked about bad things with me because he thought I wasn't that brave but I could be brave, for him, you see. But people would talk about them with him sometimes, the bad things, but Finnick didn't like to remember or he didn't like me to hear because they would look at me and stop talking and I just talked to people who aren't real.

Sometimes I say things wrong. Sometimes I think now isn't the right time. Sometimes I think now is the arena or now is going to happen. Sometimes I talk about Finnick as if he's with me but he isn't because he isn't real anymore. But nobody seems to mind but nobody minds me anyway because they think I'm mad and I am but I'd rather be mad than dead.

Bad things happened to me, too, very, very bad things, and the boy without a head, but not the same bad things which happened to Finnick but they can't happen anymore because he's dead and he isn't real anymore. Katniss says a mutt got him but she didn't want to say but I wanted her to say because I want to know what happened.

There are black spots inside my thinking like clouds.

Sometimes, when it's stormy, there are big black clouds over the sea and they reflect and lightning can't decide if it's going up or down and it's against the arena walls in the back and you can't get away from the water because it's coming down too while it's going up and it squishes you so you can't breathe because it's everywhere and I have to scream so people will hear me and put it all away because I'm done with the arena but I don't scream so much anymore.

If I don't know what happened to Finnick then there's a dark cloud inside my memory. There is the part where he's with me and he says goodbye and I tell him that we are going to have a baby and his eyes almost fill up with more water to match the sea color and then he has to go away and then that's the end. But Katniss told me all of it, even though she held Peeta's hand the whole time and she almost cried too because she isn't afraid of me, and she told me how Finnick died and now I know he was real, all the way up until the end.

Because Finnick Odair is dead and that is real. And that makes me very sad, devastatingly sad, because he's gone and he can't come back and in this world they say he isn't real anymore. But I am. I am real and I'm not dead and I can swim and I didn't die in the arena and I didn't die at the Quell and I'm alive now and I'm a mother and there isn't enough room to sit around feeling sad or talking in my head to the boy without a head or Finnick. Because Finnick's little boy has eyes which are green.

Or maybe blue.

And they are the color of the sea and I make sure he eats sugar cubes every day and we like to throw rocks off the pier at the gulls and he can swim and he's never going to go away to the arena, the arena which fills up with water and chokes you so you can't talk. But I can talk. I just have to go slowly because the things in my head sometimes get jumbled coming out, like when waves try to push each other to get to rocks and get past them or over them or around them or even through them but the rocks don't move. I don't laugh anymore when nobody else is because the people who aren't real aren't there and they aren't trying to make me happier because I'm already pretty happy. Sometimes I have to scream because even if Finnick is dead and he isn't real here anymore, he was killed by the mutts and I can hear the mutts the Capitol has which sound like Finnick on the television or dying and he's screaming and I have to scream, too, even if I cover my ears, which doesn't block it out. But I don't think that will ever go away and I don't want it to because it's still his voice which is nice to have.

Sometimes, when the sun is setting, the sea gets all soft and orange and there's a long bridge of light that goes skipping over teeny tiny rises to the sand out to the sun. I think that's where Finnick is now. And one day when I'm not busy here anymore I'll just walk down that pretty little bridge to Finnick and he'll be there and he'll hug me and we won't be apart anymore and I'll be happy again, all entirely happy, not just full-up happy, because there's a piece that isn't happy because that piece is Finnick. And he isn't real here anymore but neither is the bridge. So I will wait until then, throwing rocks with my son and Finnick's son and talking and swimming in water that holds you like Finnick would hug you and doesn't try to drown you because it's the sea and it loves you and I love it because when I look at it I think of Finnick and his eyes and that's enough for me for now.

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><p><strong>AN** Well, how was that? I hope it wasn't overly confusing. Tell me? Yes, just click the nice little review button. Constructive criticism most certainly _will_ be taken to heart and I appreciate everything. Thank you so much for reading!


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